


The Bedside Vigil Club

by friendlyneighborhoodsecretary



Series: I'm Never Prompt with Prompts [9]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bedside Vigils, Being Superhero Support is Never Easy, Gen, Hugs, May and Pepper Really Should Be Friends, hospital stays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21908440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlyneighborhoodsecretary/pseuds/friendlyneighborhoodsecretary
Summary: Caring about a superhero is never easy. No one knows that better than May Parker and Pepper Potts.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Pepper Potts, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: I'm Never Prompt with Prompts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558726
Comments: 14
Kudos: 94





	The Bedside Vigil Club

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt: "First hug."

She hadn’t been sure of Pepper Potts at first.

Peter mentions her in passing from time to time, the name dropping in and out of his rambling anecdotes about his afternoons in the lab with Tony, his internship-sponsored excursions to the repurchased Stark Tower, and the like, but there’s never quite enough information for May to decide whether Ms. Potts can be trusted with the measure of her nephew’s safety that rests on her knowledge of his identity. It’s easier with Tony—once she gets over the urge to throttle him for keeping the secret from _her_ along with the rest of the world—and with Happy—once she gets to meet him and has a gruff, but earnest face to put to Peter’s stories—because she’s met them. Has had a chance to take the measure of the people Peter depends on for herself. Pepper, on the other hand, remains a distant presence that makes May ever so slightly nervous.

But that first Christmas—when she’s unable to say no to Peter’s excitement about an invite to the private Stark Christmas dinner—she walks reluctantly into the penthouse to the sight of Pepper counterbalancing the ladder Tony perches on top of. The two of them bicker idly back and forth about whether or not rewiring the Christmas lights to blink messages in binary code will enhance anyone’s enjoyment of the holiday or will simply end up electrocuting someone, and May can’t help relaxing a little. She would recognize that tone a mile away, the fondness behind Pepper’s exasperation, the calm firmness learned only by years of arguing with someone overburdened with smarts and lacking in sense, the love it takes to _keep_ doing it even when you know you won’t win—she knows the language because she speaks it just as fluently. Has been ever since she was tasked with raising the sweet hellion who immediately pipes up with a suggestion for rewiring said lights more efficiently as he beelines for Stark’s side with stars in his eyes. May and Pepper sigh in stereo. And that is that.

They have an understanding. A kinship, even if the yawning gap between their work schedules and social calendars rule out a friendship beyond their chats at the increasing number of Stark events May is escorted to by her increasingly excited nephew. Still, it was comforting to know that she wasn’t the only one walking this particular path, even if they did walk it at different paces.

May doesn’t see Pepper again until she’s trying not to hyperventilate outside the alcove that houses the coffee machine nearest Peter’s slot in the medbay. Pepper is the only one to follow her out of the cramped little bay when May bolts. Tony paces a narrow strip of floor, squinting irritably at the various machine displays, rearranging the contents of the untouched meal tray at Peter’s bedside four times in half an hour—but he won’t leave Peter’s orbit for anything, not even for May, though his brow creases in concern when she stumbles out. Happy is the opposite of Tony’s nervous energy, standing heavy as a statue in the corner and just as immovable when it comes to budging from his post. But Pepper, who has only just arrived to take up the bedside vigil the three of them have held ever since Peter’s ill-fated brush with an armed bank robber landed him there, follows.

“May…” Pepper’s voice is quiet, steady as she eases up to where May toggles the button on the sleek little Keurig with shaky fingers. “He’s going to be fine, I promise.”

“ _Fine?_ He’s…he’s…” May flaps a hand as she searches for words that won’t make her crumble. She’s tried to stay as calm and collected as she knows Peter will need her to be—as she’s known he’ll need her to be ever since she learned what he does with his abilities and knew in her gut that he would someday bite off more than he could chew.

But Peter is collapsed in a battered heap. And her resolve has collapsed right along with him.

He _will_ be fine once that radioactive blood does its work and the anesthesia from the necessary surgery washes out of his bloodstream. Intellectually, she knows that—runs it over and over in her mind like a logical little mantra.

But he’s so _still._

She’s watched him lie in his hospital bed all morning. Watched his chest rise and fall in shallow breaths, watched his eyes twitch beneath his lids as he dreams, watched every inch of him for clues that he isn’t as lifeless as he looks, and found not one thing reassuring enough to stop the memories of Ben lying just as still in his casket, of Richard lying still in his. The longer she looks at Peter’s profile, stark and pale against the pillow, the more he resembles the both of them. And the more her stomach turns with the horror of it.

“Oh, May…” Pepper winds both arms around May’s shoulders, calm and steady and for a moment, it feels as if that’s the only thing holding her up. Her voice is calm, too, but knowing. Solemn and apologetic in a solidarity few others could share. Sympathetic in a way no else could be.

“It never gets any easier, does it?” May says in a ragged whisper. She can feel it in her bones already, the thing she always hesitates to call mother’s intuition rearing its head to scream that this is only the beginning. She’s not sure her heart can take it if it is. She isn’t easily rattled—never has been—and it’s always served her well. Through crises and alien invasions and personal tragedies and a career that relies heavily on not caving under pressure of any kind, she’s always kept her cool. But this…Seeing her Peter like this, small and vulnerable and broken, is almost too much even when she knows the real danger has passed.

“I wish it did.” Pepper’s reply is whispered, too. May supposes Pepper would know…Tony was the first to go throwing himself face-first at trouble and hoping he was enough to quell it. She wonders how many times it’s been Tony on the gurney, struggling through battle wounds he didn’t have to take. She wonders how many times Peter will follow in his footsteps. How many times it will be her and Pepper holding the bedside vigils and sharing bad medbay coffee. The thought sends a shudder up her spine and Pepper’s grip tightens, a comfort against the horrible thoughts roiling in her brain.

They rock back and forth in place for a moment, and May holds on to the solace that at least she won’t be alone.

That at least someone understands.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to drop a comment with any thoughts you have or stop by and say hello on [Tumblr](https://friendlyneighborhoodsecretary.tumblr.com/)


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